How To Choose A Slot Site

A Jungle of Slot Skins

If you are a bingo player who enjoys playing slots sooner or later you’ll want to venture beyond the world of online bingo sites in search of different slots to play elsewhere. You probably thought there were a bewildering number of bingo sites to choose from – well, that’s nothing to the number of slots sites out there! But, even more so than in the world of online bingo sites, a great many of these sites are basically the same.

To understand how this can be the case, it is only necessary to consider Cozy bingo sites – which almost invariably have exactly the same bingo rooms, chat and promotions as each other and only differ in the look of the home page. Cozy provide what is called a white label solution, meaning that all the operator needs to do is to apply their own design – a “skin” – to the ready made and ready networked bingo site. Cozy also hold the Gambling Commission licence and in most cases they carry out all the player communication. Dragonfish network bingo sites also work like this but in the case of Dragonfish bingo the operator has more of an opportunity to put their own stamp on the site with exclusive promotions or bingo rooms.

White label solutions are even more prevalent in the world of slots sites (Progress Play, Stride Gaming, Dragonfish Casinoflex, Nektan, Cozy, Jumpman and White Hat are just some of the ones you will come across) and in fact there is nothing objectionable about a slots site being a skin;

There’s no chat, so no issue over whether it is site specific or networked

Slots volatility and liquidity is not affected by the number of other players on site (whereas in bingo, as the number of players increases the value of the prizes goes up and the chance of actually winning one goes down)

Indeed, there is a potential advantage to playing at a slots site run by an operator who has a large number of skins – they will almost certainly have many members of staff working for them and are therefore likely to be better at looking after their VIP players.

How Many Slot Sites To Play At?

Bingo varies from bingo room to bingo room depending on the number of players in the room and on whether the prizes are fixed or determined by ticket sales; the number of players affects the variance and the way the prizes are worked out affects the RTP. With slots, although the variance and RTP differ from slot to slot, they do NOT differ from site to site – unless (as happened in 2016 when some non UK regulated casinos were found to be running fake Netent games) the slots themselves are of questionable origin. The UK Gambling Commission requires the slots themselves to be licensed, not just the operator, so you can be sure if you are playing at a UK regulated slots site that all the games are genuine and fair.

Essentially, if you play say Starburst you will be playing the same game no matter what site you are on. Nevertheless, there are reasons why you might want to find one site you like, with the right selection of slots under one roof and the right set of player promotions, and stick to it.

In many slot games – such as Nemo’s Voyage, Immortal Romance and Double Juicy – progress towards a bonus round is saved from session to session. Play at a different site and you’ll have to start again.

Loyalty rewards and/or VIP perks.

The sheer convenience of it – only one login to remember.

Finding Your Favourite Slots

As a result of action taken by the Gambling Commission in October 2017, this is now a whole lot harder – if you happen to like slots that feature cuddly toys, fairytale characters, cartoon superheroes or anything else the Gambling Commission thinks appeals particularly to children. Operators are no longer allowed to advertise such games anywhere it might be seen by under 18s and what this is likely to mean is that in future you won’t be able to see your favourite cuddly toy slot on the slots page of a site unless you already have an age verified account there and are logged in. The trick, then, is to be able to work out whether a site offers the slot you want without having to sign up there first – and this is much easier if you know which slot provider goes with which slot.

Gonzo’s Quest, for example, is a Netent slot. It isn’t on the initial list of slots that are considered to be a problem, but if it were (as many Netent slots are) players would still be able to find slot sites that offer it by looking for slot sites with Netent slots. Eyecon is another slot provider with many slots on the blacklist and again, the missing unicorns, plushies and the like can be found by looking for slot sites with Eyecon slots.